t for him. I wish your poor father could
but have lived to see this day! Often as I have missed my old gossip, I
don't know that I ever felt the loss of him so keenly as I felt it
when Frank's wedding-cards and Frank's letter came to this house. Your
friend, if you ever want one,

"FRANCIS CLARE, Sen."

With one momentary disturbance of her composure, produced by the
appearance of Kirke's name in Mr. Clare's singular narrative, Magdalen
read the letter steadily through from beginning to end. The time when it
could have distressed her was gone by; the scales had long since fallen
from her eyes. Mr. Clare himself would have been satisfied if he had
seen the quiet contempt on her face as she laid aside his letter.
The only serious thought it cost her was a thought in which Kirke was
concerned. The careless manner in which he had referred in her presence
to the passengers on board his ship, without mentioning any of them by
their names, showed her that Frank must have kept silence on the subject
of the engagement once existing between them. The confession of that
vanished delusion was left for her to make, as part of the story of the
past which she had pledged herself unreservedly to reveal.

She wrote to Miss Garth, and sent the letter to the post immediately.

The next morning brought a line of rejoinder. Miss Garth had written
to secure the cottage at Shanklin, and Mr. Merrick had consented to
Magdalen's removal on the following day. Norah would be the first to
arrive at the house; and Miss Garth would follow, with a comfortable
carriage to take the invalid to the railway. Every needful arrangement
had been made for her; the effort of moving was the one effort she would
have to make.

Magdalen read the letter thankfully, but her thoughts wandered from
it, and followed Kirke on his return to the City. What was the business
which had once already taken him there in the morning? And why had the
promise exchanged between them obliged him to go to the City again, for
the second time in one day?

Was it by any chance business relating to the sea? Were his employers
tempting him to go back to his ship?

CHAPTER IV.

THE first agitation of the meeting between the sisters was over; the
first vivid impressions, half pleasurable, half painful, had softened a
little, and Norah and Magdalen sat together hand in hand, each rapt in
the silent fullness of her own joy. Magdalen was the first to speak.

"You have somethin